


Her Man, Holmes

by eloquated



Series: Holmes, Mycroft Holmes [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: A handful of spy tropes, Can be read as Mylock/Holmescest, Cold War, Depends on your shipping glasses., Gen, M/M, Spy Mycroft Holmes, but it doesn't have to be, genre typical violence, not historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloquated/pseuds/eloquated
Summary: Mycroft Holmes was a mystery.  But only when you looked very closely.( Or, What the British Government did, before he was the British Government. )
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
Series: Holmes, Mycroft Holmes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007778
Comments: 53
Kudos: 40





	Her Man, Holmes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetingDesires](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetingDesires/gifts).



> Hey everyone! This is something a little different from me! But I was chatting to the wonderful FleetingDesires about spy!Mycroft, and why he would probably call himself a 'field agent' instead of a spy, and this popped into my head.
> 
> Hopefully reading about spy!Myc is as fun as writing it was!

****

**[ L O N D O N,** **2 0 1 0 . ]**

Mycroft Holmes had scars.

John didn't know why this surprised him so much. After all, you didn't live to your forties without a few bumps along the way. And Mycroft had ostensibly spent at least part of his childhood with Sherlock, who was a human disaster. 

But John knew the sort of scars you got from Sherlock's experiments; he'd earned more than a few himself, and he doubted that his best friend's methods had changed much in the last few decades. 

These weren't small, definitely not the result of flying shrapnel and bits of broken erlenmeyer flasks. John was a doctor, an army medic, and he knew the distinctive look of battlefield surgery. Of scar tissue that had been repaired later, but could never entirely erase the fact that something had gone wrong with the initial treatment.

Mycroft, he'd started to realize, was a mystery. But only when you looked very closely. 

On the surface he was almost too pretentious and rarified to live. He was a hothouse flower, with carefully combed auburn hair, and a wardrobe that belonged to either royalty, or a Victorian gentleman. The act was almost perfect, as long as you never saw him with his shift sleeves pushed back, baring the edges of several raised, silvered scars.

John's first thought was suicide, a vein of something brittle and self-destructive like his little brother. A sign of his stressful office job taking its toll. But that was quickly discarded, because Mycroft wasn't the sort of person to admit defeat; he was the kind who convinced other people to commit suicide to make his stress go away.

The more he looked, the more John realized that Mycroft was an enigma wrapped in another enigma, like one of those puzzles that you think you've solved, until you realize the back is completely different, and your assumptions were wrong.

People like Mycroft didn't deign to sit in the chairs at 221B Baker Street, especially when their suits cost more than most people's university degrees, and one could never be entirely sure that Sherlock hadn't covered the worn leather with something unpleasant.

They didn't drink tea from the cups at 221B, because Sherlock used them for experiments, and nasty odds and ends had been known to appear in them without warning. 

John hadn't forgotten the eyeball.

And most importantly, they didn't do whatever Mycroft had done to get Sherlock out of Serbia. He didn't know the details, but someone with Mycroft's security clearance and influence could have sent anyone. Instead, he'd chosen to go himself.

None of it added up. 

Sherlock had to have seen the scars, of course. Even under the influence of a mad cocktail of drugs, he was still too perceptive to miss that. But if he knew the truth behind the odd scars? He wasn't going to tell John. 

Sometimes when you were dealing with Holmeses, you just had to accept a little disappointment.

**[ G E R M A N Y,** **1 9 8 7 . ]**

Mycroft's definition of 'inconvenient' had changed drastically over the last two years, and he wasn't always sure if it was for the best.

His ears rang with the sharp, tinny sound that echoed after a gunshot. It momentarily drowned out the sound of the train clattering over the tracks, and the musical hum of polite society in the next car. 

Raw, human instinct burned at the back of his brain, prompting him to run. As usual, his muscles were half a step ahead of his higher logic-- an evolutionary throwback from days when cavemen had to outrun things with very big teeth. His legs twitched before he locked down his control, and pressed back against the wall.

The baggage car was a mess, as usual. And the shot had gone wide of the mark, nowhere near his head.

_The bastard was trying to scare him out._

Which meant he didn't know for certain where Mycroft was. Or, more importantly, the microchip in his waistcoat pocket, outlining Novikov's plan to plant sleeper agents in the best universities in England.

Indoctrination through education. It was hardly subtle, and it had Novikov's fingerprints all over it. 

Mycroft had been working this assignment for too long to be outed by some henchman with a pistol hidden in his trench coat pocket. He had to find some way off this train before it reached Berlin, otherwise he was going to have a Hell of a time making the contact in Prague.

Unfortunately, there were only two doors into the baggage compartment, and his current hiding place wasn't going to hold forever. It wouldn't matter if Novikov's goon couldn't see him, if he couldn't see him either-- and Mycroft wasn't keen on the idea of running out into the open like a headless chicken.

The henchman might not be a good shot, especially shooting from the hip like he was. But Mycroft wasn't willing to bet his life on it. Or the success of the assignment.

The information in his pocket could make the difference between ending the war in the next six months, or continuing on indefinitely. Which meant he didn't have a choice-- had to get off the train, and he had to meet with Basil in Prague.

No excuses.

Besides, Novikov had made a fatal error when he'd decided to target the same school Sherlock was attending. Most agents had gotten the message that you didn't fuck with Mycroft Holmes' baby brother, but apparently this one hadn't gotten the memo.

Mycroft would have liked to keep Sherlock off their radar entirely, but life had spilled over into work. And even if the bastard responsible for leaking the information was dead? 

Well, the damage had been done.

Bracing his shoulder against the stack of baggage currently serving as a wall, Mycroft shifted the Walther P99 in his hand, finger loose on the trigger. He could hear the bastard rummaging around near the door on the far side of the train car, kicking over boxes and muttering under his breath.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." The brute added in a thick accent, and Mycroft smirked to himself.

He didn't have much of a vantage point, but with a hard shove, Mycroft dislodged the stack of suitcases in a deafening clatter of hard sided luggage, a few leather pieces bouncing across the filthy floor.

He bolted forward in a roll, gun raised, and the car echoed with the sound of shots.

Heat burst across Mycroft's raised forearm as he hit the ground with his shoulder, ducking into a narrow cover at the other side of the car. Carefully he wiggled his fingers, blood already trickling down his wrist-- but everything seemed to be moving more or less properly.

After a moment he wrapped his handkerchief around his arm and cinched it tight. It would have to do until he could get it looked at in Prague. 

It wasn't a life threatening wound, but the same couldn't be said about the henchman.

Blood frothed up through the tidy hole in the man's throat, and he gasped, both hands clutching uselessly. 

_If I hit the carotid, he'll be dead in a few seconds._

A careless spy was a dead spy, so Mycroft waited. The last thing he needed this week was a henchman with a throat scar and a personal grudge. 

It would make getting to Prague even more inconvenient.

**[ S I B E R I A,** **1 9 9 1 . ]**

"Mr. Holmes, my old friend, it's been such a long time. Not since that unfortunate little incident in Singapore, wasn't it?"

The man's breast pocket glittered with military insignia, the last vestiges of a crumbling union worn with pride. It was a stark contrast to the side of his face, half covered with a black eye patch that did nothing to hide the extent of the scarring. 

He wandered around the room with a casual air, fingers tap-tapping on the remote control he held in his hand. He could have been waiting for a dance partner, and in a fashion, he was. Though Mycroft was currently tied down to the large table in the middle of the room. 

They'd done this before, a dozen times now.

And it had always been a zero-sum game.

"Kozlov, I should have guessed. The whole thing felt like one of your games." Mycroft replied as smoothly as he could when his throat was compressed by the thick, black restraint across it. 

"And yet, here you are, in chains! And here I am, free to do whatever I like with you. Consider your alternatives: you could die here, after telling me everything you know. And you will tell me, in the end. We have ways of making even very strong people talk. We've made it into something of an art..."

Kozlov let the words hang for a moment, and Mycroft was fairly sure the dramatic emphasis was lost on him. 

"Or you could join us. Just think about all the good we could do if we weren't fighting each other anymore. We've been playing this cat and mouse game for a long time, but it was inevitable that you would end up here eventually. Why not accept it?"

Mycroft scoffed a laugh, even though it made pained black spots appear behind his eyelids, "If you're planning torture me for information, can we get on with it? We both know my loyalty is to Queen and country, not to Gorbachev and your lot."

"Brave to the end, Mr. Holmes! I would have expected nothing less."

While Kozlov turned his attention to the remote in his hands, Mycroft slowly worked his fingers into the lining of his suit jacket. It was a tight fit, his men had done a thorough job of tying him in place, but Mycroft didn't need a lot of space to reach the tiny blade hidden in the blue silk lining.

He'd been here for days already, and it was a minor miracle they hadn't found it. 

A miracle he had to thank the Research and Development department for when he got home.

He had no gun, and apart from the vague map on the wall, he had no concrete idea where he was. Somewhere in Siberia, it looked like; and if he knew Kozlov, it would be too remote to escape from on foot. 

That would be a problem. But it was less pressing than getting his hands free.

Mycroft's hands felt clumsy and swollen as he carefully worked the blade against the restraint on his left wrist. He wasn't surprised, not when he was sure that several of the fingers on that hand had already been broken. 

He worked as quickly as he could, one eye fixed on the villain treading the boards, grinning with the triumph of someone who has counted their success too soon.

A few hours and some rather serious frostbite later, Mycroft boarded a train out of Russia under the name Vasiliev, headed for England. 

Kozlov wouldn't be causing him trouble anymore.

**.**

Sherlock had questions for which Mycroft had no answers.

It had been like this for years, and it was driving him insane. They were brothers, they were supposed to know everything about each other (well, he was supposed to know everything about Mycroft, Sherlock was much happier if that liberty only ran one way). 

Everything was on a need-to-know basis between them, and Sherlock needed to know everything.

Especially when it ended with his brother in a hospital bed, covered in tubes and wires. Sherlock knew there were beetle black stitches under the starched blanket, but Mycroft wouldn't tell him what had happened.

What had really happened. Sherlock had already listened to the back of lies his brother had told their parents, and which they'd believed without hesitation. _Idiots_ , because anyone in their right mind knew that you didn't get frostbite in the middle of Madrid. In the summer.

Even if someone had locked you in an industrial freezer.

"It's very difficult to sleep with you staring at me, brother mine." 

Sherlock glanced up to meet his brother's eyes, still glassy from the morphine, and he squeezed his wrist-- the only part of him that didn't look like he'd been worked over with a cricket bat. "I'm trying to deduce where you'd been this time, and why. I'd ask, but this is more fun."

It wasn't. Not even close. And part of Sherlock resented the fact that his brother probably wasn't going to tell him. 

He never had before.

"It's precisely what I told Mummy and Father, just a small misunderstanding blown rather out of proportion. You don't have to worry, Sherlock. The doctors were able to set my fingers, and they're confident that I'm going to make a full recovery."

"Ha! It's not these injuries I'm worried about, Mycroft. It's whatever is going to happen to you _next_."

Later, Sherlock would blame it on exhaustion, the way he rested his head on the side of his brother's pillow, breathing in the sour smell of bleach and starch and betadine that clung to him. "I don't want to lose you."

Mycroft sighed under his breath, and rested his cheek against Sherlock's thick, black curls. He couldn't tell him that this would happen again-- there would always be someone waiting in the wings to cause trouble. Sherlock had already managed to deduce that might for himself, and there were rules between them.

They could evade. They could tell half-truths. But lies had been outlawed when Sherlock was three.

"You won't, Lock. I'll always do my best to come home."

After all, wasn't that why he was doing this? To protect the Queen, and the Commonwealth-- but mostly, to protect his little brother.

**[ L O N D O N,** **2 0 1 1 . ]**

Most of the people who worked at Vauxhall Cross didn't look up when Mycroft passed. He'd been an institution here for longer than most of them had been part of the service. Most of them weren't sure exactly what he did-- even his job title was vague-- but everyone knew that he had the best intentions of the country, and of MI6, at heart.

Even when they doubted he had one.

With a sleek black briefcase and an umbrella, he could have been any well-to-do businessman in the city; as long as you didn't look too closely at the files he carried. Or the tiny button on his umbrella. Or that fact that the ID in his wallet looked very different from the average bloke in the street.

Hades ran the country from this shadowy underworld of secrets and lies, but at the moment his mind was elsewhere.

Primarily on the fact that he was running late, and Sherlock was bound to be in a foul mood if he didn't hurry along.

"You know John's suspecting things about you." Sherlock mused aloud later than night, both ankles crossed in his brother's lap. "He saw some of your scars."

He illustrated his point by tracing over one of the raised marks on Mycroft's inner arm, and smirked as his fingers twitched reflexively.

"Mmhmm... I've noticed." Mycroft hummed dismissively, and folded his hands loosely over Sherlock's long feet. There were any number of things Mycroft had to worry about every day, and John Watson simply wasn't one of them.

He could speculate and attempt deductions until he was blue in the face; they'd never be anything but guesses. Educated ones, perhaps, but guesses all the same.

"He's going to think you're some kind of James Bond. A spy." Sherlock shot back, and wiggled his toes under Mycroft's palm. The word sounded ridiculous, _a spy_. As if his big brother had ever done anything so exciting in all his life!

No, Sherlock was the spy. He'd taken down Moriarty, after all.

Mycroft smiled vaguely, and tilted his head against the back of the couch in his own living room, "What a flight of fanciful imagination. It's a good thing we know better, isn't it?"

Sherlock stopped, head half tilted as he glanced over at Mycroft, one eyebrow raised. The scars. The last-minute trips for government meetings that had always resulted in his brother being exhausted at best, and hospitalized at worst. Not recently, no-- but it had been a recurring event in their younger years.

"No, of course not." Sherlock muttered noncommittally.

It couldn't be...

Could it?


End file.
